Various hand-held bait buckets are known in the art. However, when using the known bait buckets, problems are often encountered in removing bait such as minnows from the bucket by hand. In many of the known bait buckets the fisherman must reach into the water in the bait bucket and attempt to catch the minnows or other live bait which are swimming in the water. There have been many proposals for solving this problem; however, many of these proposals are either expensive, cumbersome or ineffective.